Foot Locker, Inc. (NYSE:FL) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Frank Bracken : Yes. I would just say that within our guidance, we’ve allowed ourselves some flexibility to be able to be agile and reactive, be competitive and continue to see the sell-through to us, both the top line as well as put us in the inventory position that we’re forecasting for the end of the year. And then obviously, there’s a great partnership in collaboration with the vendors to make sure that we’re delivering value and the price value is there in terms of the marketplace. So — the last thing is our inventory is very fresh and healthy, and very seasonally relevant. Merchant team has worked very hard at the supply chain has normalized. We’re not back to pre-COVID, but it’s certainly gotten significantly better. So the flow of goods and being seasonally relevant, things like winter boots, fleece are showing up, and we’ve got in stores, and we’re well stocked to capture the cold weather markets for the holiday season.

Corey Tarlowe : Great. And then just on the fourth quarter commentary, it sounds like October comps were, I believe, down mid-single digits, but the guide is for kind of down mid- to high singles. Is that just a reflection of kind of conservatism? Just any color there would be helpful.

Andrew Page : Really, it kind of goes back to my answer earlier on the fact that this is — the fourth quarter will be the first meaningful quarter — first steep quarter in the Nike allocation drop.

Operator: Our last question will come from Paul Lejuez of Citi.

Paul Lejuez : Curious if you could frame the size of the Easy business for us for the first three quarters of next year, just to understand the hole that you might be facing without that product? And then also curious, when you have a sale from a signature launch, what does the attachment rate look like or tied to that launch versus a transaction outside of the signature launch?

Andrew Page : Yes, I’ll start off with kind of sizing the YEEZY business, about $120 million business for us in 2022. Like I said, of which $50 million was going to be allocated to the fourth quarter. We expect that while not giving guidance in 2023, we expected that to be a somewhat larger proportion going into 2023.

Frank Bracken: Yes. As it relates to launch, footwear launching and attachment, certainly, the brands are great storytellers and I think Jordan brand, the Puma brand, the Nike brand. One of the things that has been challenging candidly throughout COVID has been supply chain disruption and the ability to deliver apparel connectivity with the footwear launch. That has significantly improved. We saw that improve sequentially throughout Q3 and back to school, and we’re pretty confident in Q4, we’re going to have much better line, which for us means the online, in stores, we can tell that full story and complement the consumer and drive that better basket. So I think holiday, we’ll see improvement in that front.

Paul Lejuez : Got it. And then just a clarification, Andrew, the $120 million that you mentioned, is that — that was what was supposed to happen in ’22 and then will be back $50 million out of that, so it’s like $70 million in quarters one through three?

Andrew Page : Yes.

Operator: This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Robert Higginbotham for any closing remarks.

Robert Higginbotham : Thank you for joining us today. Please join us again for our next earnings call, which we anticipate will take place at 9:00 a.m. on Friday, February 24. The call will follow the release of our fourth quarter earnings results earlier that morning. Thank you, and goodbye.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation and you may now disconnect.

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